Archive

Quotes

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

—Dean Acheson, 1970

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

—Laozi, c. 500 BC

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

—Henrik Ibsen, 1882

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

—Paul Valéry, 1943

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

—Herodotus, c. 425 BC

Envy is the basis of democracy.

—Bertrand Russell, 1930

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

—Immanuel Kant, 1784

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1830

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

—H. Rap Brown, 1967

Politics is the art of the possible.

—Otto von Bismarck, 1867

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

—Quintus Fabius Maximus, c. 203 BC